Toy piano.



UNITE STATEs Patented August 30, 1904;.

PATENT OEEicE.

I NICHOLAS H. OOLI/VELL, OF PAlV-TUOKET, RHODE ISLAND, ASSIGNOR TO NATIONAL NOVELTY CORPORATION, OF NEIV YORK, N. Y., A CORPO- RATION OF NEIV JERSEY.

TOY PIANO.

SPECIFICATION forming'part of Letters Patent N0. 769,129, dated August 30, 1904.

Application filed April 1, 1904. Serial No. 201,164. (No model.)

To (M w/wm, it may concern.-

Be'it known that I, Nior-roLAs H. OoLwELL, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at Pawtucket, in the State of Rhode Island, have in. vented a new and useful-Improvement 1n Toy Pianos, of which the following is a speciiiea tion.

My invention consists of certain improvements in the construction of the keys and of the pivot-support for the same and also of the hammers upon which the keys are arranged to operate, as hereinafter set forth, and by my invention the toy piano is improved both in its construction and operation.

5 In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 represents a transverse section of a toy piano embodying my invention. Fig. 2 represents a section taken in the line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 represents an outspread top View of the connected series of hammers.

In the drawings, (4 represents the bottom of the wooden casing of the piano.

Z) L are strips of felt secured to the bottom a to receive the impact of the keys '0 0, which 5 latter are each provided with an attached block (Z for lifting action upon the hammer The keys 0 are pivoted upon a rod 0, which may be made of wire or other suitable material, supported at its ends by the wooden strips 3 p, the said rod being provided with a nonresonant covering f, which may be formed of any suitable material, as a winding of yarn or twine or a covering of braid, cloth, or porous paper. In order to provide at very little expense a suitable opening in the keys 0 for the reception of the rod 6 and its coveringf, I first saw a groove of sufficient width and depth to receive the pivoting-rod 0 and its covering across a block of wood of suifi- 4 cient width to make several keys, and then fasten over the groove so formed a strip of paper, pasteboard, or other suitable material, and then saw the grooved block into strips of the required width to form the keys, the resulting groove or notch g, covered by the fastened strip it, serving to form a proper opening for the reception of the covered supporting-rod 6, upon which the keys are pivoted for action upon the hammers 2 The shanks jy' of the. hammers 2' are cut 5 out connectedly from a strip of the proper flexible material, as shown in Fig. 3, and this strip is preferably formed by inserting a strip of pasteboard q or similar material between outer layers of cloth and cementing the layers together, and after the wooden hammer-heads 71 have been fastened to the connected shanks 7' j, as shown in Fig. 3, the continuous edge 71; is to be tacked to the wooden strip Z, so that each of the connected hammers will strike upon its proper metallic tone-plate m and rest at the flexible end a of its shank upon the upper surface of its operating-key. The keys 0 are kept separate from each other upon the covered supporting-rod c by means 5 of the intervening washers 0, made of pasteboard or other suitable material, which will serve to secure the noiseless action of the keys.

I claim as my invention- 7 1. The combination of the keys of atoy piano with a pivoting-rod provided with a nonresonant covering, substantially as described.

2. The combination of the pivoting-rod provided with a non-resonant covering with the 75 keys provided with the pivoting grooves or notches covered by the attached strips, substantially as described.

3. In a toy piano, the combination of the series of keys and the series of metallic toneplates, with the series of hammers having their shanks integrally connected at their inner ends, substantially as described.

SocRATEs Soi-roLErELn, O. E. DAY. 

